Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Pre- surgery screening and CT scan today

Well, today has been a busy day. I have 3 new needle holes, and a pint less blood, but I am now done with everything until surgery. This morning was the pre-surgical screening and that went quick. The nurse just asked a lot of questions about medical history and stuff like that, then I had 4 vials of blood taken (though I don't know what all they are testing for.)The screening went so fast I had time to go in and donate another pint of blood for myself. That was hard because the girl had no idea what she was doing and had to keep calling someone else over to help when the blood would stop coming out. It sounded like when she rotated the needle she went to far and pushed through the other side of the vein. I did get the full pint so I am at least done with that.After giving blood it was on to the ortho hospital to meet the Dr. that would take me to the motion study and the CT scan. The motion test was fun. They put electrodes all over me and had me walk back and forth. Apparently I hit all of the spots I was supposed to even though they didn't tell me about that beforehand. They showed me my walking pattern and it was fascinating. My hips are crooked with one higher than the other, and my pelvis is very narrow so it took a while to get started. They couldn't figure out how to make it work so they used different markers. It showed that when I walk, I swing my right leg and foot to step, whereas my left I place it. From the front my gait is all out of wack, but from the side it looked good. Anyway, i finished that and it was on to the CT scan arthrogram.The arthrogram hurt a little because there was so much dye that went in. Also, they pulled on my leg to open the joint so the dye could disperse better. The doctor asked if I had ever dislocated my hip because when they pulled there was a lot of space and it was really loose. On to the CT scan where they put me in a traction thing to pull on my leg for the scan. They want to get the joint space wide open to get a good reading on the damage. After that was done, I got to see the scan. I have very little cartilage in the front of the joint, but my labrum is really thick (to compensate?) There is a small, incomplete tear in the posterior labrum that will be fixed during surgery. Also, they saw an osteophyte (which google tells me is a bone spur) on the front of the acetabulum that they will remove at surgery.Well, that has been my day. I am getting a disk of the motion study, and pictures from the scan, but not until next week. When I get them, I will post it on here. Also, we are working on getting the doctor to agree to video the surgery so I can watch it (and send Dad a copy). I will post again when I hear anything new.